Friday, July 10, 2009

Writers' desks - Charlie Cochrane

It's Friday again (already?) and time for the third in my series of writers' desks. This week it's the turn of historical romance writer Charlie Cochrane.

Don't forget that if you're a writer and would like to take part, you can email me for further details.

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"This computer cart is where I write, answer e-mails, edit and do most of the things associated with my author life. It’s in our study, which is a pleasant little room with a view out onto the garden so I can swivel round in my chair and see winter jasmine, miniature daffodils or rhododendrons in flower, all depending on the time of year.

It’s a place I can shut myself away in and get on with writing – when the muse lets me – and let my bits and pieces spread.

The picture makes it look a bit too tidy – at the moment there are a pile of books under that teddy bear, one to be reviewed and some reference sources for the ‘work in progress’. There’s also CD’s to keep me happy while I’m tied to the keyboard and a picture of my eldest daughter and her prom date to admire. Alongside all the usual paraphernalia of modern life such as spare printer cartridges and cables to link various electronic gismos one to the other.

I find inspiration from the framed poem – one a friend wrote for my twenty fifth wedding anniversary - and the romantically creative juices are at present also being stimulated by pictures of the Garrison Church at Portsmouth and a rather nice Italian chap from the 1880’s, whose photo I found in a shop in Oxford.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that an assorted set of stories such as mine get written at a desk covered in an eclectic mixture of stuff."

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Charlie Cochrane primarily writes historical gay mysteries/romances - her Cambridge Fellows Mysteries Series, set in Edwardian England, is available through Samhain, and she has stories in the anthologies 'I Do' (MLR), 'Queer Wolf' (Queered Fiction) and ‘Speak Its Name’ (Cheyenne Publishing). You can find her online at her Livejournal blog.